Atera vs. Help Scout

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Atera
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Atera is presented as an Agentic AI platform for IT management, that offers a digital workforce of AI agents that proactively and autonomously support entire IT operations. Atera’s all-in-one IT management platform consolidates RMM, helpdesk, ticketing, and automation, so IT teams and MSPs can manage and protect infrastructure, automate tasks, and boost service quality by reducing downtime and improving SLAs. Atera has shifted focus from automation to AI-powered autonomy in IT. With…
$129
per month (billed annually) per user
Help Scout
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Help Scout is help desk software. The vendor’s value proposition is that that their solution reduces time spent on training users because Help Scout is simple to use and set up and scales like any enterprise product. This solution includes multiple mailboxes to support as many email addresses as needed in order to work collaboratively across teams, and manage several products or brands from one account. Reports on conversation trends, team performance, productivity, and customer happiness are…
$30
per month starts with 100 contacts
Pricing
AteraHelp Scout
Editions & Modules
MSP - Pro
$129
per month (billed annually) per user
IT Department - Professional
$149
per month (billed annually) per user
MSP - Growth
$179
per month (billed annually) per user
IT Department - Expert
$189
per month (billed annually) per user
MSP - Power
$209
per month (billed annually) per user
IT Department - Master
$219
per month (billed annually) per user
Standard
$30
per month starts with 100 contacts
Plus
$90
per month starts with 200 contacts
Company
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AteraHelp Scout
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsUnlimited devices.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AteraHelp Scout
Considered Both Products
Atera
Chose Atera
Atera is well designed for remote monitoring and management purposes. The other tools, such as ManageEngine endpoint central, are more focused on managing the endpoints and applications, such as installation or removal of applications, and blocking or whitelisting applications.
A…
Chose Atera
We used Logmein for remote access and used another platform called Fresh Service for our ticketing. Logmein was okay but the ability for us to merge the two together, on top of all of the other features that Atera offers (reporting and monitoring!) has been game changing. We …
Chose Atera
I think Atera is the leader here. The aggressive pricing along with feature set is unparalleled in my opinion. They seem to be headed in the right direction and keep pushing the envelope in what the tool can do. The one thing lacking for me is the Apple integration into …
Chose Atera
Atera is very similar to Syncro in feature set and pricing, but we liked Atera just a bit better. (We switched from Atera to Syncro and then back to Atera, and have stuck with Atera for several years now.) Kaseya gave us bad vibes from their sales department and we ultimately …
Chose Atera
I also used other org suites, but Atera is the winner here. It offers services like IT service management, network monitoring, and billing. We get most of the service under one roof. Hence, Atera is the winner compared to other applications I have used.
Chose Atera
In my opinion, Datto is not a great company to partner with. In my experience, billing is crazy and when you call in for support you get sales.
Chose Atera
Atera Billing of per technician is a great way to save
Atera has 24/7 support that response in a matter of seconds
The Copilot that they have added recently is a game changer and will make anyone wants to associate themselves with Atera
Chose Atera
NinjaOne is a great tool for Remote management and patch management. However, Atera is more polished and gives better functionality for the end user side through things like work from home, and the support portal knowledge base. Also, when using NinjaOne, I don't remember there …
Chose Atera
ManageEngine Endpoint Central and GoTo Resolve
Chose Atera
Because Atera is a much more effective and efficient solution to manage all our IT operations, it automates each of our business processes. It offers us the best support to respond to any problem that may arise. I think Atera is much more cost-effective and reliable; its value …
Chose Atera
Comparison from ConnectWise and Autotask, Atera is more simplified, Cost effective and Integration RMM, PSA and automation features
Chose Atera
In my experience, Atera lured us in with the pricing per technician to try and save us money. They then proceeded to take features away and lock them behind higher-tiers. In addition, in my opinion, their customer support is atrocious. I think if you enjoy long times between …
Chose Atera
It is live in our organization and it works along with Atera in our organization, however I have more trust on Atera due to its stability and ruggedness, so Atera is the only choice most of the IT dept works on.
I would not comment on the ManageEngine PAM solution as I have less …
Chose Atera
The user interface is easier to navigate, and remote desktop capabilities for troubleshooting were the differentiating factor.
Chose Atera
Atera was very similar with Syncro but a bit more user friendly. There were a few features with Syncro I really liked that Atera does not have yet like custom reporting.
Chose Atera
Atera has so many features that are fully functional.
Atera is easy to use.
Chose Atera
Atera is way more user friendly , it has a smooth learning curve and the pricing is favorable. Atera also has a lot of features that make it superior. They even have additional features like the ticketing system that was a pleasant surprise to have. Overall Atera stands out at …
Chose Atera
Atera's pay-per-technician pricing just made sense for us. They don't nickel-and-dime either. NinjaOne, by contrast, was over twice as expensive to start out, but they wanted to charge extra just for a ticketing system and many other things.
Chose Atera
NinjaOne is a great platform but is simple overall versus Atera. Atera is so feature rich that it can be overwhelming at times but is worth the learning curve. Take time to go through the onboarding, reading the help articles, and even reaching out to support directly through …
Chose Atera
Atera pulls the best features from the above systems I have previous experience in and unites them in an All-in-one solution that simplifies and improves everyone's experience.
Chose Atera
Atera was the clear winner for us. The interface and tools were very easy to learn and setup. Atera's licensing incorporates good feature sets and value levels.

Some of the other products were difficult to setup and lacked good flow between tools. The value proposition was …
Chose Atera
In comparing Atera with similar products I've used or evaluated, like SolarWinds, ConnectWise, and Kaseya, Atera stands out for its user-friendly interface and cost-effectiveness. While SolarWinds offers robust features, it can be overwhelming and pricey for smaller setups. …
Chose Atera
Atera was more cost effective, easy to deploy and had all the features and tools we needed. It's still a little rough around the edges but we can work around those considering its a fraction of the cost compared to others.
Chose Atera
This Year I started an IT company and was in need of monitoring and PSA software. In the past I've worked with Datto, Datto RMM and Ncentral so one of these would be a logical choice for me to choose. However their pricing is from a different world. For a starting company, …
Help Scout
Chose Help Scout
Help Scout is better for emails while Intercom is better for chats from what we found
Chose Help Scout
I also have used Zendesk previously, which is much more complicated; however, it can offer much more possibilities for customizing.
Chose Help Scout
Only have minimal experience with G-Suite for a much smaller company. This worked well for that organization but did not have similar specialization functions that suite our larger organization very well. Help Scout's pricing makes sense, and continues to service our needs …
Chose Help Scout
We primarily chose HelpScout because they were an affordable, moderately robust, HIPAA compliant solution. All the other options (e.g. Zendesk, Freshdesk, Kayako, etc.) were out of our price range or did not provide the necessary features that our team has come to rely on.
Chose Help Scout
Help Scout is a way better looking product. In the last two years they have stepped up their game. I hope to use their live chat soon. Zendesk is clunky and the user interface is terrible.
Chose Help Scout
This is tricky because there's helpdesk apps and chat apps (now Help Scout offers both).

We first used just an email inbox (of course not scalable but we were very small), then we turned to Freshdesk, which was painful to use. It had some cool features but in general it was …
Chose Help Scout
Help Scout easily plugs into Gmail and allows us to create reports based on our tagging. We found its price point for us as a nonprofit was a good fit. Customer service was also supportive. It also allows us to have an external help desk for our common questions from clients.
Chose Help Scout
We liked Help Scout better because of the help center integration and ability to split out multiple inboxes.
Chose Help Scout
They all had their positives and negatives. For us, it came down to signing a BAA (Zendesk wanted $28,000 to sign one). We enjoy working with vendors who can support healthcare initiates such as we are building.
Chose Help Scout
I've tried almost every single other live chat support tool. Most of them are easy to plug and play into the HTML page layout, but in terms of usefulness and cost, a smaller startup will always choose Help Scout no matter what. It's easily the best option for a bootstrapped …
Chose Help Scout
We did test out several other support desk tools before finally deciding to go with Help Scout. The main tipping point was the fact that Help Scout almost appeared invisible to the end user (our customer). To them, it just feels as if they are reaching someone via email, not …
Chose Help Scout
It has been an ongong debate about whether or not we should switch to Zendesk. They are all about prioritizing customers, delaying response time, and treating the customer like cattle. I'm sure we will switch someday because key heads in the company used to use it, but the …
Chose Help Scout
My team used Zendesk for years and then we switched to a lighter solution.
Chose Help Scout
DevRev, Fin by Intercom and HelpCrunch
Features
AteraHelp Scout
Application Performance Management
Comparison of Application Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Atera
10.0
Ratings
31% above category average
Help Scout
-
Ratings
Virtualization monitoring10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
IT Asset Discovery10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring Tasks
Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Product A and Product B
Atera
9.4
Ratings
24% above category average
Help Scout
-
Ratings
Remote monitoring8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Network device monitoring9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Activity Monitoring10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tasks
Comparison of Management Tasks features of Product A and Product B
Atera
8.9
Ratings
18% above category average
Help Scout
-
Ratings
Patch Management8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based automation7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Remote Access
Comparison of Remote Access features of Product A and Product B
Atera
7.8
Ratings
14% above category average
Help Scout
-
Ratings
Attended device access10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Unattended device access10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile device access1.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Virtual device access10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple-display support7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple concurrent sessions9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Atera
-
Ratings
Help Scout
8.8
Ratings
9% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Atera
-
Ratings
Help Scout
8.5
Ratings
8% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Atera
-
Ratings
Help Scout
8.0
Ratings
3% above category average
Email support00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
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User Ratings
AteraHelp Scout
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AteraHelp Scout
Likelihood to Recommend
Atera is doing well in the monitoring part as it is informing the real time ping of running devices and if any device goes down, it is informing us on the real time. It is helping us to monitor the last reboot status, current logged in users, time zone, IP addresses and other things so that we can track our end devices status. In the patching part Atera is pathing our all devices with the notification stating user to restart device at their convenient time. It is also patching our third party applications. It is good in installing and uninstalling of the third party application but limited to availability in the Atera inventory. Atera is not good in some parts such as in the patching part of applications, sometime it fails to update all 3rd party applications that were not installed via Atera. It is not good if you have to transfer a file to multiple systems at the same time.
Read full review
Small businesses that want a conversational type of customer support experience. Nothing wrong with support tickets, but it does make you feel like a number. Also, we needed to get up and running quickly so the "inbox" feel of the dashboard was already familiar with the team so they could adopt the new software quickly.
Read full review
Pros
  • Remoting in from anywhere, even on my phone or tablet, has enabled me to quickly diagnose, or even fully resolve, problems.
  • The ticketing, once users are set up, is a breeze. It also keeps everything in one place for them.
  • With Atera the need to travel on-site has been dramatically reduced.
Read full review
  • Extremely simple to use and understand as a user - treats communications like human beings and provides a much more personal feel to communication (as opposed to making people feel like numbers).
  • The email newsletter.
  • They are super responsive. They are pretty rad and transparent: if something goes wrong on their end they are not afraid of admitting fault. Which leads me to trust them because I can believe them. I know that tells you very little about the product, but as leadership, that's something that I really need
  • Help Scout does exactly what it needs to (facilitate organized, efficient conversations between customers and support people) without getting in the way.
Read full review
Cons
  • Some basic functions need some extra work
  • Some basic things are behind paywalls
  • Feature board is not credible. Ideas taking very, very long to implement
  • Atera has no clear road map
  • SNMP monitoring needs a make over and needs more options
Read full review
  • It is a bit slow sometimes, but not very often.
  • I've noticed more network errors with their server in the past year.
  • Small annoyance - they use a lot of lightbox popups and if you click outside the box all of your work is lost.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
As of right now, we have found nothing that can offer as many features as Atera does along with the affordability. They are doing monthly releases each month and not just making small changes (shared scripting library, chocolatey support, Install packages, Splashtop SOS support, Scheduled tickets to name a few). The uptimes are great and accessibility to the dashboard has yet to be limited. We are a happy customer and bordering on fanboy status now
Read full review
We are receiving feedback from the organizational level that they may want us to transition to a different solution to provide consistency across the company.
Read full review
Usability
Atera has a user-friendly interface that improves navigation. Support staff can quickly access real-time alerts and remote devices and manage tickets without much training. ​Atera’s usability has positively impacted our organization by increasing operational efficiency and improving response times to resolve issues.
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Help Scout is a great solution for support teams. There are many articles and webinars to help you learn how to use Help Scout. There are also many features to help make your workflows easier and more efficient. I would readily recommend Help Scout to any small or medium-growing support teams.
Read full review
Support Rating
Atera support provides answers to my questions lightning fast. They have never left me feeling like I'm out there on my own. I can ask questions by email, or by chat, or by opening a ticket with them and they are always on it quickly. They also have a forum where other Atera users can help you if you need it, and you can also add feature requests via the forum.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Atera is well designed for remote monitoring and management purposes. The other tools, such as ManageEngine Endpoint Central, are more focused on managing the endpoints and applications, such as installation or removal of applications, and blocking or whitelisting applications. Atera is well structured for core monitoring and management purposes. It works like a well designed monitoring tool and at the same time works as a well designed management tool. Price point of Atera is very low as compared to other applications and the main part is that it does not cost you for the number of devices it covered, instead it will cost you on the basis of admin licenses you have. You can have one license and under that you can manage thousands of devices. Apart from this, Atera has a lot of tools that are integrated with it, and they are really useful.
Read full review
This is tricky because there's helpdesk apps and chat apps (now Help Scout offers both). We first used just an email inbox (of course not scalable but we were very small), then we turned to Freshdesk, which was painful to use. It had some cool features but in general it was ugly, slow, using the interface was very non-intuitive and the prioritization was hard. I have to say this was more than a year ago, so probably they have changed, but anyway. Zendesk is very expensive considering the features are almost the same AND the chat app needs to be paid separately. As chat we used Tawk.to, it was functional but metrics were not that good and it was buggy at times. Comparing Help Scout with their competitors, at least for us, made it a no-brainer to hire them. The price was very attractive considering the amount of features, the great support and the quality of the app. I don't regret my decision at all because Help Scout, unlike other helpdesk companies, tries to have their app "smart" and not a big, corporate thing piled with features. It does what it needs, it's easy to use and helps you achieve your goals regarding support for your customers.
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Return on Investment
  • It helped us considerably increase the pace of onboarding people.
  • Deployment of updates was easier and seamless compared to before the Atera phase.
  • It was easier to control employee laptops to troubleshoot issues remotely since most of our employees worked from home.
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  • We are able to retain our customer base due to the outstanding customer service our Customer Experience department provides. Without an organized tool like Help Scout, this would not be possible. We pride ourselves in quick response times to customers and are able to do so by effectively routing tickets to the right agents.
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ScreenShots

Atera Screenshots

Screenshot of Atera’s AI-powered solution.Screenshot of Atera's process automation.Screenshot of Atera's real-time monitoring, which gives visibility and control of the IT environment.Screenshot of Atera's ticketing, where users can deliver end-user support and issue resolution at scale.

Help Scout Screenshots

Screenshot of Build better relationships with your customers, and work together better as a teamScreenshot of Tools designed specifically for team collaboration on customer supportScreenshot of Docs Knowledge Base provides self-service that sets your customers up for successScreenshot of The conversation report can change the conversation with your customers from problems to praise by pinpointing what they write in about and when.Screenshot of Productivity Reports track your team's customer-helping velocity and identify sticking points to push through with even greater momentum.Screenshot of Happiness Reports are the closest you can get to your customer's true feelings without hiring a telepath.